Strategy development in a dynamic setting: A study of goals, processes, change, and variability

The use of strategies in everyday dynamic tasks and situations is a common occurrence and is vital to successfully accomplishing many tasks. Researchers have long been interested in how people use and develop strategies. However, as many researchers have pointed out, (e.g., Sternberg, 1984; Miller, 1993) the majority of the research addressing this issue has focused on the outcomes rather than the potentially more informative aspects of strategy development and the process and mechanisms of change and adaptation. This study examined the mechanisms of strategy variability and selection utilizing a longitudinal method that focuses on the individual called the microgenetic approach. The primary purpose was to examine strategy development and focus on the role of variability among strategies over time within a dynamic task environment. Thirteen participants were studied over three months as they coached a simulated football team over 16 games. Goals, mechanisms, play-calling strategies, and performance were assessed for each game. The results suggest that variability plays a major role in adaptive skill acquisition in a dynamic environment, from the types of goals that are set to the developmental process of strategies and task performance. The goals people set on a session-by-session basis significantly affected the types of mechanisms employed. Use of some mechanisms predicted higher strategy variability and the relationship between strategy variability and performance contradicted past research findings. The importance of a dynamic and naturalistic experimental task setting is discussed along with the implications of strategy variability on adaptive skill acquisition.